MBC installs Grass Valley replay for coverage of Saudi Arabia’s Professional Football League

As the Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC) prepares to begin its second season of exclusive coverage of Saudi Arabia’s professional football league, the network has invested in the K2 Dyno Replay System from Grass Valley to help create engaging content, including programme highlights and replays.

The K2 Dyno is an instant replay and highlights generation system for HD, SD, 3G and UHD/4K with pan/zoom technology – as well as high-frame-rate productions with Grass Valley’s LDX camera systems. Its AnySpeed technology provides the smoothest playback at any speed from zero to 200 percent, including speed transitions. This expands the ability to tell a compelling story during replays, especially when footage is captured at 6X speed.

This marks the first in a series of projects MBC plans in Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates after winning the rights to broadcast the Saudi Arabian Football Federation for the next 10 years.

“We know viewers love watching these games, and we’re thrilled that Grass Valley’s K2 Dyno replay system will make the experience even more enjoyable,” said Nick Barratt, senior broadcast manager, MBC. “This technology provides the smoothest playback at speeds from zero to 200 percent, so we’ll be able to highlight the important plays as they happen. And after evaluating the replay options, this was much more cost-effective than other solutions on the market.”

The K2 Dyno replay system offers MBC more functionality because it works well with not only the station’s existing K2 media server, but also its on-air graphics system.

“This is a move that really will enhance MBC’s coverage of this popular sport,” noted Steve Stubelt, senior vice-president of sales and marketing, Grass Valley. “MBC is an award-winning station that prides itself on broadcasts of unparalleled quality; the implementation of K2 Dyno is just another example of how they do that.”